Microsoft claims Windows Vista is off to a fast start, having sold more than 20 million copies since its 30 January consumer release.
By comparison, in its first two months, Windows XP sold 17 million copies, Microsoft said.
"We are encouraged to see such a positive consumer response to Windows Vista right out of the gate," corporate vice president Bill Veghte said in a statement on Monday. "While it's very early in the product lifecycle, we are setting a foundation for Windows Vista to become the fastest-adopted version of Windows ever."
Of course, the PC market has grown substantially since XP hit store shelves. In 2001, worldwide PC shipments totaled 136 million units, while last year the industry shipped 227 million computers, according to IDC.
And Microsoft's figures include not only boxed copy sales and those included on new PCs, but also people who bought Windows XP during the holiday season and have applied for their free Vista upgrade since the mainstream launch of Vista.
What do you think?
Vista – do I or don’t I?
ZDNet UK's David Meyer is torn: upgrade from Windows XP now, or wait for Vista SP1?
In an interview, Windows marketing director Bill Mannion said that the upgrade programme did help the sales figures, but said it wasn't the driving factor. "It's boosting the overall number, but it's certainly not the core component of the 20 million," he said.
PC makers also say that they are encouraged by early results for Windows Vista.
"Overall we've seen a pretty good reaction to the release of Vista," said Kenneth Walker, chief technologist of PC maker Gateway.
Both Microsoft and the PC makers also say they are seeing a shift to higher-end versions of Vista. When XP made its debut in 2001, it came in two main flavours — Home and Professional. The company eventually added the Tablet PC and Media Center editions, and over time, Media Center became the dominant version on retail shelves. Vista comes in six flavours — Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate, as well as a Starter Edition only sold on new PCs in emerging markets.
Mannion said that Microsoft is even seeing better-than-expected sales of the pricey Ultimate edition. "We have relatively modest expectations for Ultimate, but it's exceeding that on both new PCs and the packaged product."
Walker said that Gateway has seen more customers on its website choosing the Ultimate edition than it initially expected. Customers who go to the web often buy high-end machines, and those buyers may want to try to "future-proof" their PC by opting for the most full-featured version they can get.
He likens it to car buyers who buy more horsepower than they need. "How many people buy the V8 instead of the V6?" Walker said. Or how many go with the optional towing package, "even though they have nothing to tow?"
Hewlett-Packard, which sells most of its PCs through retail stores, said it is has seen "not much interest" in the Ultimate version thus far. The company said it has seen consumers opt for PCs with more memory as well as machines with Windows Vista Home Premium.
Bruce Greenwood, vice president of notebooks and North American channel sales for HP, said that with both laptops and desktops, HP is seeing a shift away from the lowest memory systems and those with Vista Home Basic toward machines with 1GB or more of memory.
Although Microsoft is counting in its sales totals those who bought XP machines late last year and have applied for a free "Express Upgrade" to Vista, most PC makers have only this month started to ship the copies. The programme has been a source of considerable frustration for many buyers, who have had trouble registering and getting approved for their upgrade.
Mannion said Microsoft hopes such problems are largely a thing of the past.
"That appears to be behind us now," Mannion said. "We understand manufacturers to be in full shipment mode."
Talkback
There are about 1.5 times as many computers today since XP came out.
Going from 17 million (XP) to 20 million (Vista) is only about 1.18 .
You're right - considering the growth in the number of PCs it isn't selling as fast as XP but it is still doing better than expected considering other factors.
XP has been out there a long time and people are happy with it. It's not like the flakey USB support in win98 or dodgey everything in WinME which means people were dieing to upgrade. XP is still a solid OS.
Also the price. When I got XP Pro it cost about £180 retail and £110 OEM. Vista Ultimate is about £360 retail and £120 OEM. As most people will be getting retail it means off the shelf the price difference is a put off. Obviously there are lower priced editions but who wants a cut down version when your current OS is doing it's job just fine.
The other major contributing factors is Apples anti-vista campaign, and the general Anti Microsoft atmosphere that seems to be going round. This maybe because Microsoft is fighting too battles on too many fronts - taking on Sony with the xbox, Apple with the Windows/Zune/Windows Mobile and Norton/McAfee with OneCare. I think Microsoft have better products in the Console and Mobile categories but despite this may not come out on top. Conversely Apple may arguably have the better OS prior to Vista and may again when Leopard comes out but Microsoft is till likely to win that battle.
I think once people start using Vista they will never want to go back. I didn't fully understand what made Vista good despite reading about a lot of the features until I actually started using it on a daily basis. Now when I use a XP system I feel my hands are tied as things take longer to do or are just not as slickly implemented.
Vista doesn't have all the features I hoped for like WinFS but I think a drastic change in the file system like that would be too confusing for users to make the transition. Vista is a nice stepping stone to get used to tagging, stacking, search and relationship based locating of documents for when the next edition comes with hopefully a full fledged WinFS file system.
Wonderful reply David, i think you covered alot of the items i was going to raise.
Namely XP is the most stable version of Windows in recent times (aimed at home users) and I would guess a large portion of the user-base won't have used a version prior to this.
With pricing structures for Vista being based on the different versions, this can be very confusing for a standard home user who will generally take what they are given or told to use (pre-bundled software).
So while purchasing a new PC, those adverts to upgrade from the standard bundled Vista to a Higher End version will seem like a wonderful deal, yet will give the user no added benefit due to the way they use the system.
Tho sadly the WinFS was the one features I was most looking forward too.
You said that
"Now when I use a XP system I feel my hands are tied as things take longer to do or are just not as slickly implemented."
I agree with you on XP. However, I'd rather continue using Linux and the KDE than Windows Vista. I simply see no compelling reason for using Vista which I think is not worth its money. As usual, Microsoft will just push its Vista into the market through its monopoly powers. However, with its shrinking market share it might well be the last major OS we have seen from Microsoft.
Bought a laptop retail in the States. Could only get Vista and then only Home, so 1 Vista. We then had to upgrade, not to business which is what we wanted but to Ultimate as that was the only one that was allowed via the upgrade route. 1 Ultimate. This took the money and caused the blue screen of death on the laptop meaning a rebuild to the original Home edition. Tried the upgrade again and the process took more money and racked up another copy of Ultimate and yet again resulted in the blue screen of death. Laptop was taken back to supplier who stated that a clean build of Ultimate was needed, still no option of Business, so at this stage we are on our THIRD Vista Ultimate and having a headache trying to reclaim the money. Apparently this situation is quite common over in the States at the moment.
After 3 days my user got fed up with Vista not allowing him to work. We found packages needed upgrading and were told by other package "writers" that Microsoft had responded to their complaints of excessive changes by stating that they should "do what we do and charge the customers". We have now wiped the laptop and installed XP and all is better in the world, so that is 20 mill minus our 4, I am also seriously considering revamping our packages to run under linux if I have to rewrite them anyway.
I have heard a lot of horror stories about lack of drivers and compatibility issues. If I had the inclination to leave Linux and move to VISTA I would wait until SP2. My wife has to use XP at work so we have a copy of that and I use it for games but all my serious work is on Linux. I have to agree though that XP is the most stable version I have used.
I don't think Vista is the OS to get you to switch from Linux.
I see it more of Microsoft catching up with OSX and it's target being to retain existing users i.e. sell to exisiting windows users and those thinking of buying a new system.
I don't think there will be many Linux/Apple converts but it has put me off switching over to a mac (was going to get a MacBook Pro) now I see the potential of some Vista features like shadow copy.
It won't stop me keeping a copy of XP and Redhat as alternative options when booting up (still have to use XP for work VPN :( )
I am confused, Microsoft state 18 million copies of Vista sold in 2 months, sales of new computers last year equalled 227 million or approx 19 million per month on average yet only 18 million copies of Vista sold, seems to me the Vista uptake is not even keeping pace with new PC sales. Seems to me the numbers don't quite stack up.
A lot of people I know who bought PCs with Vista have binned it in favour of XP.
The numbers quoted here give a false impression. The question is how many PCs are still running Vista 2 months after it was installed? Anyone?
I think that is because PC sales are not linear. If an even amount of systems were sold each month it would mean 19million sold as you said but I imagine sales fluctuate and this would likely be a dry time as Christmas and the sales immediately after are usually peak times followed by a lull afterwards which is when Vista was released.
On top of that the fear/confusion of Vista has led many to hold of buy a PC until Vista has proven itself so I would guestimate PC sales to make to be in the region of 10-12ml at most rather than 19ml during the last couple of months.
No portion of this going to a charity, similar to the red SLVR?
http://www.zuneconverter.net
20 million copies shipped ...... hardly. Of these 20 million, a large percentage will be corporate subscription take-ups, which are purchased licenses by default. Whether the customer takes up the product or not, these get counted as "products shipped/sold", therefore 20 million is NOT the number of copies installed and in use.
Why would MS so blatantly over-state the figures for the product?? Quite simply the product is years late, about 50% of the original scope is missing from the "finished" product. The product is lacking in innovation, and advanced features(MacOS X has been using most of these features for years). With these issues/problems MS clearly recognises that they have a weak product to sell, so is keen to promote it as an overwhelming success, expecting - and in many cases probably correctly - that people will jump on the band-wagon and purchase.
MS is finally being challenged in the "desktop" arena, and is devoid of ideas and any competent response in this area. Linux is now becoming a mature desktop - Mandriva2007 with it's 3D desktop for example is blindingly fast, and stable, and can run on any "PC" hardware. MacOS X is an extremely mature, stylish, and stable, take away the lack of needing to purchase any additional security software, then the overall increase in cost of having to run on Apple hardware is minimal.
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